Web Classified Ads Double in Use Over Last Four Years

Almost half of Internet users have used online classified ads, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.

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Online classified-ads sites such as Craigslist are gaining in popularity, though fewer than 35% of online adults over 55 use them.

Forty-nine percent of online adults surveyed said they’ve visited sites like Craigslist, Kijiji and Oodle, up from only 22% in 2005. The study says that 9% of Internet users visit these sites on any given day, compared with 4% four years ago.

“Classified ads sites are a one-stop-’shop’ for everything from jobs to apartments to
furniture to movers to puppies,” Pew researcher Sydney Jones writes. “However, users don’t buy anything directly on classified Web sites — they use the sites to set up meetings, and transactions are conducted in person or by mail — a characteristic which separates online classifieds from auction or shopping Web sites like eBay and Amazon.”

They are particularly popular with 25- to 44-year-old Web users, more than half of whom use Web classifieds, while just under half of 18- to 24-year-olds and 45- to 54-year-olds — 49% and 48%, respectively — use them.

Those figures fall for users over 55: 35% of 55- to 64-year-olds browse the sites, while 26% of Internet users over 65 do.

Use of classified sites also increases with income and education, with online adults earning $50,000 or more, as well as college graduates, considerably more likely to have visited them.

The findings point out “the growing importance of such sites to Internet users and reflect the changes in the audience for classified ads — both those who place them and those who make purchases — that have devastated a key revenue source for traditional newspapers,” Ms. Jones writes.

As Eric Savitz noted on Tech Trader Daily, newspaper classified revenue fell to $10 billion from $17.3 billion over the same period. Real-estate classifieds are down 52% since their peak in 2006, while classified advertising for cars and jobs have also tumbled. Total Web ads for newspapers in 2008 were $3.1 billion, the Newspaper Association of America says.